River
by MoonGirl1155
Summary: When Jonas leaves the community, Fiona can't get him out of her head. Literally. As the memories begin to flood the community, she develops a unbreakable bond with him through her thoughts, one that even distance couldn't keep away. Is it love? Just something I wrote for school, PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! Completed.


_**Just something I wrote for school! Please review!**_

* * *

**River**

As she stepped out into the night, the darkness twisting the shapes into disoriented figures, she took a deep breath. Was she actually going to do this? Risk everything on a sliver of hope that her pain could be cured? Her endless longing?

Whenever Fiona thought about it, her mind always answered yes.

She raced across the lawns, staying in the shadows, until she reached the river. When she arrived, she remembered the day thaw Giver had announced Jonas's death.

* * *

When the Giver stepped onto the stage at the end of the ceremony, the first thing she thought was how ignorant someone must be in order to fall into a river. No one like Jonas would have been so reckless, not with him being the receiver and all. When he had been selected, the Chief Elder had claimed that her friend had the ability to gain wisdom. Was wisdom so useless, that it didn't keep you from drowning in a river?

Then Fiona felt sadness, she was going to miss Jonas. She knew Asher would be unhappy, he was Jonas's best friend. Besides, Jonas would never be able to live a full life, never have as much experience as the old, who were the wisest people she knew. The Old had lived so long, had done so many things that she would never do. All of them knew something that she didn't. Except that none of the old had a clue about release.

Fiona had been just beginning her training in the art of release a few weeks ago, and at first she had been surprised. She had originally expected that the stories were true, that someone from elsewhere came and brought the old back with them. But once they explained it to her, she understood that the Old had to be released, it was better for the community.

Then she was broken out of her thoughts as the people began to chant Jonas's name repeatedly, getting louder each time, following the Giver's lead. There was an unfamiliar anxiety in their voices, one she had never heard before. Once the sound reached full volume, it ushered down into a whisper slowly, washing away Jonas in the current.

That's when the murmuring started, everyone speaking to each other quickly in hurried, hushed tones. Why were they doing this? There was nothing to talk about, Jonas was gone, and that was that. But the voices rose higher and higher until she could decipher their words.

"Will it be like last time? Will it be worse? What will happen?" they asked, and the Fiona remembered last year's December ceremony, when she had asked her mother about Jonas's assignment.

"What did the Chief Elder mean by the previous mistake?" she had questioned. Her mother told her that they weren't allowed to talk about it, but when the old receiver died, the community suffered terribly.

"_Were they going to suffer now? What would become of them?_" she wondered.

The Giver raised his hands to silence the crowd, and everyone's lips immediately paused to hear what he had to say.

"I know that many of you remember what had occurred the last time we lost a receiver, and I know that many of you do not. But I will not abandon you, I am here to help." He said, and then left the stage. The curtains swirled around the gap in the fabric as the Giver disappeared between them, and Fiona stared at them, trying to end her apprehension. What was the worst that could happen? Would they feel pain, such as the Receivers were supposed to? Jonas had behaved strangely since his selection, would that happen to her?

As Fiona thought these things, her questions were answered. The curtain suddenly began to, change. It was unexplainable, but the change spread from the tiny speck on the curtain where she had been staring, all throughout the fabric, until the entire thing was, different. At first she thought she had imagined it, and blinked twice to remove the hallucination, but it stayed put. The oddness swept across the room, swirling around in enormous spirals, until Fiona was utterly terrified. It swam around her like the water Jonas had drowned in, until it reached her, standing in the center of the room. It rushed from her feet until it reached the top of her head, and then the moment settled. Fiona felt awkward being the only one standing, but she knew everyone else had seen it too. Then she saw her hair, and a word entered her mind.

"_Color, Fiona, color. Red, your hair is red_." The voice said. And then she automatically realized what the strangeness was, it was color. But the voice, it belonged to Jonas.

That was the first time she had ever felt emotion, and the emotion wasn't fear.

"Color," she whispered, caressing her hair, "Red."

"What?" someone besides her asked, completely forgetting the rules of rudeness. But she didn't care, not now.

"It's called color. Don't you see it, the change? It's called color." She explained, loud enough for people around her to hear. They began whispering the word, tasting it on their tongue. Fiona felt a surge of, of something deep inside her, as if it had been missing forever. She pointed around the room towards everything she saw.

"Look, the walls are…"

"_Yellow_." Jonas's voice assisted.

"Yellow! And the curtains are blue, and my hair is red!" she exclaimed, bursting with new knowledge, something that she had always loved to gain from stories the Old always told. Fiona could almost feel the Giver watching her from behind the curtain.

"She's right." She heard a small voice say, a five named Katharine, and she looked at Fiona. Fiona beamed, and the girl smiled at her.

"Yes! And your eyes are blue, just different from the curtains! Your eyes are a different… shade." She replied, as Jonas told her the new word.

"I can see the colors too. "She heard her friend Asher said, unsure of himself.

"Yeah, I think so."

Fiona could hear the people as each one recognized the colors around them, and she felt joy. She glanced towards the curtain as the Elders announced that all of them must remain calm and return back to their dwellings, and she could see the Giver sticking his head out of the curtains, grinning at her.

Every day since then, Fiona learned something new. She learned about colors at first, and then feelings. The feelings started out with joy, and then to pure happiness as she saw something called a birthday party and a holiday. Jonas's voice always explained what each new thing was to her, and once he spoke them, they made complete and total sense. She saw memories of sailing on ships, of sledding, of snow.

The people remained generally afraid of the memories; even the pleasant ones didn't assure them that they were safe from harm. But lots of people enjoyed them, including her. The Elder's and the Giver were at constant war, keeping the community on the line, trying to decide if they ever wanted the memories to disappear.

Many loved the newfound vibrancy of the world, others the thrill of sledding, some the joy of happiness. But to Fiona, her experience was completely individual. Her favorite thing was hearing Jonas. Whenever she experienced the memories, he was always there.

So after a few weeks of memories, when he told her to stop taking the Stirring pills, she obeyed.

But then one day, the first bad memory came. She experienced war. The entire time Jonas was besides her, and they stood hand in hand, watching the men dying around them. Maroon, metallic blood soaked into the ground, staining her soul. She felt grief so strong, and then when the endless moment finally ended, she realized that they had died, just like in Release, just like Jonas.

His voice was bittersweet ever since then, bringing a wave of utter happiness that filled her heart with bliss, and then crushing agony that made her feel as if she was perishing in a memory, like the soldiers. Each passing moment, these feelings became worse and worse, and the reliever-of-pain pills did nothing to stop it. As Fiona observed the other community members, she saw that they didn't suffer in the exact way she did. Their painful feelings came from the memories, not the things in the real world. So she went to see the Giver about it.

Technically, she wasn't allowed to just walk in whenever she wanted. But he was so close to The House of the Old that she just snuck inside. It was simple; many people had been coming to the Giver for advice on handling their feelings lately. But she had to be scheduled, and Fiona didn't have time for that.

When she entered the room, the Giver didn't look surprised; He smiled at her, saying that he had expected her to come. Then she lost it, completely forgetting the rules of rudeness. She burst into sobs and the unfamiliar tears rushed down her face. The Giver told her to sit down, and began to ask her what was wrong.

"Which memory is troubling you?" he asked, but she cut in again, shaking her head.

"It's not the memories, its Jonas. I hear him inside my head and… it hurts to think about him. Like in the memories." She explained, still crying. The Giver's expression appeared pained at the mention of Jonas's name.

"I see." He said, "So why did you come?" he questioned. This stopped her, why did she come? To cry? No, it was something else.

"Did Jonas really drown?"

"No." the Giver stated plainly, and she was shocked by his honestly. Suddenly Fiona was dying to know more.

"Then where is he? Why hasn't he come back? I need to see him, I miss him so much! I know I see him in my memories, but-" The Giver cut her off, and she felt guilty for breaking the rules again.

"My dear, he simply left. To give everyone the memories, to free them. And this emotion you feel, I would believe you are experiencing love." He said.

"Love?" she asked, dumbfounded. What on earth was that? The word wasn't used because of Precision of Language, and it didn't mean anything to her at all.

"Love." The Giver said. Fiona nodded, still trying to figure it out. She knew from school that it meant something similar to liking someone very much, but that wasn't precise. Enjoying someone else? That might work. She enjoyed seeing Jonas in her thoughts, very much actually. Then Fiona felt that sweet emotion again, and she suddenly realized that Love related to the Stirrings.

"Giver, what is Love exactly?" she asked awkwardly, it seemed like a stupid question.

"Something that you could only understand if you experienced it." He said. Had she experienced it?

When Fiona asked herself this, her mind always answered yes.

* * *

This is what Fiona thought of when she saw the River, its deep blue hidden by the blackness of night, and she felt a sense of relief. This grief, this longing for Jonas would soon be over.

She kicked off her shoes, knowing that someone would find them, and lead them to believe what she wanted them to think. Then she jumped into the icy depths. The water rushed in around her, tossing her around like a rag doll, beating her and tugging her along. The river was strong, so no one could ever cross it. Maybe the community had it there purposely for children to drown.

She was pulled through the waves, and her lungs felt like they were going to burst, the pain was so real. But she relished in it, enjoying every moment of suffering. She felt as if she was screaming to the world, defying them for every ounce of life they had stripped from her. For taking away all of the wonderful experiences the memories gave. For once in Fiona's life, she felt whole.

She would never miss the society, never miss her family, and never miss the "life" she was given.

Finally, the water had slowed, and her breathing had made her dizzy. But then Fiona heard a voice, someone calling her name. She smiled, and opened her eyes. There in the water, was a brilliant, bright light, in the shape of a house. She could hear joyful laughing coming from people inside, and standing outside of the house, was Jonas and a little Newchild clinging to his leg, waiting for her. Jonas's hand was outstretched, and she was ready to take it.

So she did.


End file.
